A liberal arts college in Portland, Ore. fired its director of community safety last week for the shocking offense of identifying to FBI a recent alumnus charged with criminal acts during a June 14 anti-ICE demonstration. Cooperating with law enforcement agencies may sound like an ordinary part of any campus safety director’s job. But, after 15 years on the job, Reed College’s Gary Granger was fired for doing just that.
Editor's Note: This article was published before a federal judge blocked President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops to Portland.
All it took for Reed College administrators to give Granger the boot was backlash from donors and alumni, angry that Granger had given the FBI the name and contact information for a recent alumnus implicated in assaulting the local office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Granger recognized Robert Hoopes (Class of ’23) in law enforcement photographs from a June 14 assault on the ICE facility.
Hoopes has been charged with throwing a rock into the face of an ICE officer, and with “using an upended stop sign as a makeshift battering ram” in an attempt to breach the building. Far from distancing themselves from Hoopes, Reed College administrators have instead separated from the security officer who identified him to police. Who said the cancel culture now only exists on BlueSky?
This incident aptly illustrates the anti-ICE attitude pervading Portland in several respects. First, it features the widespread community hostility to anyone who even remotely assists in what locals believe is the immoral business of rounding up and deporting foreigners who break America’s laws. Second, it signals the profound effect this perverted public opinion can have on Portland society and its local institutions. Third, it hints darkly at the less-than-peaceful campaign that Portland activists have waged against the Portland ICE office, which — as the use of a “makeshift battering ram” suggests — now exists more or less in a state of siege.
Indeed, the Portland ICE facility has endured nightly attack for months, said Portland ICE Office director Cammila Wamsley, who complained that the facility has faced violence for 100 consecutive nights. These demonstrators have struck the building with bottle rockets, shattered windows with rocks, shone lasers into officers’ eyes, and barricaded vehicles from entering or exiting.
Wamsley was not worried about peaceful protestors with chants and signs, who might accost the ICE office at any time of day. But, “later, towards the evening and around dark, there are a lot of folks that come up dressed in all black,” she said. “They are here to wreak havoc. They’ll block our cars, throw paint, damage property and even try to follow our folks home.” The demonstrators have doxed at least six ICE employees, she added.
These activists can appear with the sophisticated coordination of a flash mob. “We’ve seen it before. The folks here can go from a crowd of 50 to a crowd of 1,000 in 30 minutes,” she said. “Sometimes we only have 20 officers here. We would not be able to defend the building with that show of force.”
The situation likely reminds readers of the fiery summer of 2020, when Antifa radicals staged nightly standoffs with law enforcement agents outside the federal courthouse in Portland, developing and refining many of the subversive tactics that have since appeared in protests across the country.
The difference is that the ICE office is a far less secure facility than the federal courthouse. The three-story building is “rather humble,” writes Oregon Live, situated near apartments and restaurants. In fact, the building is not even federal property; ICE merely leases it from the city of Portland, limiting their ability to permanently harden the premises against assault.
It would be fair to assume that the federal immigration officers are not left to protect their building all on their own. Surely the agency coordinates with local police to provide crowd control and ensure that protests remain safe and orderly.
Unfortunately, that assumption is wrong. The City of Portland publicly opposes ICE operations. “As a Sanctuary City, Portland prohibits our local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE for deportations,” the city wrote in an August 25 release. “But even with those protections in place, the federal government can still override our local authority. Trump has given ICE a multi-billion dollar budget, and federal laws prevent us from addressing everything they’re doing. However, that is not stopping us from taking action with every tool we have available to us at the local level.”
The city stops short of saying that police officers may not respond to calls for assistance at the ICE office, but in practice their policy seems to at least deprioritize such calls, making officers slow to respond, if they show up at all. Earlier this year, Los Angeles police showed a similar tardiness in protecting ICE officers from protestors. The result has been assaults committed within sight of the ICE building, which ICE is powerless to prevent.
“I’m totally baffled by it,” said Wamsley. “It’s frustrating for us to watch people be attacked on the street and know that we don’t have the authority to be able to really step in unless there’s some nexus to federal law.”
Wamsley blamed the non-responsiveness of police on Portland’s decision to target ICE in particular. “That is not the stance they would take six blocks from here, but it is the stance they take with us because of guidance from the mayor and city council.”
The utter lack of local cooperation has prompted the Trump administration to send other federal agencies to ICE’s relief. Last month, President Donald Trump activated 200 members of the Oregon National Guard, “authorizing Full Force, if necessary” against the “domestic terrorists” active in the city. (However, due to lawsuits, the guardsmen have not yet arrived at their posts.)
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek (D) responded to Trump’s announcement with utter denial. “There is no insurrection, there is no threat to national security, and there is no need for military troops in our major city,” she insisted. “We do not need or want federal troops in Oregon, stoking fear, creating conflict and, frankly, escalating a situation that is under control.” Kotek did not explain how stationing more federal officers at a federal building will make a violent altercation more likely (the common interpretation of “escalating”).
Besides deploying the National Guard, Trump has also directed other federal law enforcement agencies to play their part in unraveling the organized lawlessness on display in Portland. “They’re not just facing HSI,” declared Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent Todd Rignel. “They’re facing the FBI, ATF, DEA, IRS — all of these agencies.”
“We’re going to get out there and we’re going to do a pretty big number on those people in Portland,” said Trump, adding that “those people” meant “professional agitators and anarchists.” Last week, Trump declared Antifa to be a terrorist organization and announced an executive order to dismantle domestic terrorist networks.
Thus far, federal authorities have arrested 28 people in relation to lawless demonstrations at the Portland ICE office this year. And, despite their sluggishness, Portland police do seem to be playing a role, as local and federal officers have arrested around 60 people combined. However, the situation in Portland remains fraught, as both the demonstrators and the local government seem determined to defy the federal government.
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